Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) Boss Marissa Mayer Loses Her Bonus Of $2 Million

Yahoo! Inc

Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) CEO Marissa Mayer will not get her annual bonus of about $2 million. The company says she has a case to answer in regards to an ongoing investigation pertaining to a breach discovered in 2014. In fact, there were two security breaches but one of them was so severe that it affected more than 1 billion users occasioning a loss of $350 million.

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Mayer is not alone in this. Yahoo is also pointing fingers at its general counsel, Ronald Bell who is said to have acted slowly into solving the issues. The top lawyer has also part ways with the company and without severance pay.

But Mayer says she only learned about the scope of the breaches in September

In response to claims of not taking action against the breaches, Mayer portrays her innocence by citing that she only learned about the incidence in September. Immediately she swung into action but nonetheless, she seems to have accepted the blame from Yahoo’s board.

Mayer quotes, “I am the CEO of the company and since this incident happened during my tenure, I have agreed to forgo my annual bonus and my annual equity grant.”

Mayer has requested the company’s board to share her bonus with Yahoo’s entire labor force of 8,500 employees.  She has also offered to renounce her annual stock award, which is in the tune of $12 million, a move that the board has accepted.

The CEO may not feel so much in losing all the above. She was, after all, a top Google executive for more than a decade.

The breaches were the two biggest in internet history

The company has been deep into the investigations of the two security lapses that have taken a major toll. Apart from the $16 million that has been spent on investigation, close to 40 lawsuits have also been filed by people seeking damages.

Apparently, the breach was discovered in 2014 but the company only began giving notice to its 500 million users last September. Yahoo’s handling and disclosure of the events has also called for further investigations by the Securities and Exchange Commission. In the meantime, Yahoo’s stock was trading at $46.24 witnessing an increase of $0.58 or 1.27%

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